Archive for the ‘french islands’ Category
Notes from even smaller islands
When I was looking into Scottish Islands yesterday, I came across the Scottish Islands Federation, which represents and promotes the needs and interests of island communities in Scotland (I rather like the virtual island tours offered on the website). Anyhow, the Scottish Islands Federation is part of the European Small Islands Network, which of course immediately piqued my interest, and so I’ve been investigating the various members.
Unfortunately the website of the Swedish National Islands Association is blocked from my work for reasons of pornography (is it, in fact, porn?), and the Finnish Turku Islands Association doesn’t have a website (though there is some tourist information available here, and gosh, it looks rather lovely), but otherwise, look:
- The Irish Islands Federation. 32 islands off the coasts of Antrim, Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Galway and Cork (no east coast islands?); only a few of the individual islands have websites: Rathlin, Arainn Mhor, Bere Island, Inis Oirr (one of the Aran Islands), Inishbofin and Clare Island, which is fairly understandable given that the majority of the islands in the federation have a population of less than ten, bloody hell. Still, useful if you fancy remoteness and isolation…
- L’Association des Iles du Ponant, which represents islands off the north and west coasts of France (are there any islands off the south coast? I have a feeling there are – other than Corsica, of course – but they don’t seem to be included. Perhaps they have their own association): the Chausey archipelago, Brehat, Batz, Ouessant, Molene, Sein, the Glenan archipelago, Groix, Belle-Ile, Houat, Hoedic, Ile aux Moines, Arz, Yeu and Aix (Ouessant and Yeu are the most appealing destinations from my point of view). The islands vary from being just a few hundred metres from the mainland to a couple of hours’ out to sea, but all seem to be fairly easily reachable from ports on the mainland, and the main Iles du Ponant site has a lot of useful information for tourists, including details of how to access the islands.
- The Association of Danish Small Islands. Back when I was fifteen, I went on a three-month student exchange to Germany, which involves spending two weeks in the middle of winter in a holiday house on the north sea at Westerhever, which has given me a long-standing interest in the north sea and Baltic coasts; unfortunately for me, much of the Danish site is only in Danish, but it does have me rather longing to pay a visit to Anholt.
